Bobby McFerrin, (born March 11, 1950, New York, New York, U.S.) American musician noted for his tremendous vocal control and improvisational ability. He often sang a cappella, mixing folk songs, 1960s rock and soul tunes, and jazz themes with original lyrics. He preferred to sing without fixed lyrics, and he could imitate the sounds of various musical instruments with great skill.

McFerrin’s parents both had distinguished vocal careers. His mother, a soprano, was a Metropolitan Opera judge who chaired the vocal department at Fullerton College, near Los Angeles, and his father, who sang at the Met, dubbed actor Sidney Poitier’s singing on the 1959 Porgy and Bess sound track. In McFerrin’s youth he was inclined to become a minister of music, but, after attending California State University at Sacramento and Cerritos College in Norwalk, California, he instead became a pianist and organist with the Ice Follies ice-skating show and with pop music bands. In 1977 he auditioned for and won a singing job. As a swinging jazz and ballad vocalist, by 1980 McFerrin was touring with popular jazz singer Jon Hendricks. Inspired by Keith Jarrett’s improvised piano concerts, in 1982 he worked up the nerve to sing alone.

McFerrin issued his self-titled debut album in 1982, and it was followed by The Voice (1984), which was unusual because it featured no accompaniment; Spontaneous Inventions (1985), which featured music by Herbie Hancock and Manhattan Transfer; and Simple Pleasures (1988), which featured the hit song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” He also recorded television commercials and a theme song for The Cosby Show; improvised music for actor Jack Nicholson’s readings of Rudyard Kipling’s children’s stories; and released an album with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, titled Hush, in 1992.

McFerrin was perhaps best known for his spontaneity; in concert he might wander through the auditorium singing, make up songs on listeners’ names, conduct his audience in choirs, or burst into a condensed version of The Wizard of Oz, complete with tornado sounds and munchkin, witch, and scarecrow voices. On record he could improvise all the parts in a vocal group himself, as he did in “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” In 1995 McFerrin released Paper Music, an album he collaborated on with the St. Paul (Minnesota) Chamber Orchestra that featured orchestral works by Mozart, Bach, Rossini, and other masters, with the melodies sung instead of played.

By the beginning of the 21st century, McFerrin’s work had garnered 10 Grammy Awards. His later recordings include Circlesongs (1997) and VOCAbuLarieS (2010), for which he drew from various world-music traditions to create minimally accompanied, harmonically rich choral pieces; the impressionistic jazz album Beyond Words (2002); and Spirityouall (2013), an homage to African Americanspirituals.

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...to imitate the sound of instrumental solos—into their opera Porgy and Bess (1935). In the later 20th and the early 21st century, American vocalist and composer Bobby McFerrin was recognized for his extraordinary ability to imitate not only the sound of single instruments but also entire ensembles using only his voice. (See also chanson; lied;...

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type of traditional and generally rural music that originally was passed down through families and other small social groups. Typically, folk music, like folk literature, lives in oral tradition; it is learned through hearing rather than reading. It is functional in the sense that it is associated...

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(born 1950). American musician Bobby McFerrin was noted for his tremendous vocal control and ability to improvise. He often sang a capella (unaccompanied). With a voice spanning four octaves and the ability to breath circularly-he sang while both inhaling and exhaling-McFerrin had a unique talent that allowed him to imitate the sounds of numerous musical instruments and act as a one-man band. His uncanny ability to perform scat and bebop and then switch abruptly to rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and even classical attested to his impressive vocal range. A versatile performer, McFerrin used his extensive musical knowledge to branch out into symphonic conducting in the 1990s.